


You Can't Escape the Fake Marriage Trope

by HaroThar



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Engagement, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Minor Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Play Fighting, Rapid vacillation between self-loathing and vanity, Sharing a Bed, Taxidermy, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-29 19:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroThar/pseuds/HaroThar
Summary: So my dear sweet darling Luneth wrote a small chapter in Featherverse in which Dave Sr. was an ass, and I just... fuckin' ran with it. If you haven't readthat good shitthen you ABSOLUTELY should! Especially since this won't make sense if you don't.





	You Can't Escape the Fake Marriage Trope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luneth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luneth/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Scattered Feathers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8257399) by [Luneth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luneth/pseuds/Luneth). 



> So names. I am not going to have everybody being Sr. and Jr. so I gave Alpha and Beforus adults new names  
> A!Dave = Dave Sr.  
> A!Rose = Flora  
> Mom Lalonde = Roxanne  
> B!Karkat = Katai  
> B!Aradia = Adria  
> B!Tavros = Ross  
> B!Sollux = Alex  
> B!Nepeta = Natalie  
> B!Kanaya = Ania  
> B!Terezi = Theresa  
> B!Equius = Equiano  
> B!Gamzee = James  
> B!Eridan = Daniel or Danny  
> B!Feferi = Fi  
> Signless = Kanishka

Dave Strider Sr., creator of the incredibly lucrative and yet somehow still rising out of obscurity movie series, SBaHJ, is an asshole. He is also your boss. Technically. He doesn’t act like your boss, more like this is a massive collaboration that you’re in on, and that’s something you genuinely appreciate about him. The only times when he really exercises the fact that he’s “in charge” are when you’re not being specifically stupid enough for a specific line of asinine dialogue that even your well-experienced ass cannot derive meaning from.

You’ve lost track of the number of times Strider has told you “because irony” as his reasoning for making you do stupid shit. But you suppose that’s not the worst thing that could happen to you. You’re one of the leading actors in his aforementioned incredibly lucrative movie series, not as Sweet Bro nor Hella Jeff, but Geromy, because you fit not only the physical description but you’re one of the few actors on this entire goddamned planet who can not only put up with this terrible script, but perform it with style.

Your asshole boss is now leaning onto your shoulder (he’s tall, that’s how you know he’s an asshole. All tall people are assholes. And claim that because you are short that you’re closer to hell.)

(They are right.)

He’s telling you about his Thanksgiving, which he had invited you to and you had _politely_ declined. It sounds like a riot. You can appreciate the hilarity of the situation, since you were not entrenched ass-deep in the shit that it absolutely must have been.

“And so then I apologize, ‘cause, y’know, I neglected to bring my dear sweet husband to Thanksgiving with me. Especially since the kids had managed to bring their dates and my own spouse? Totally absent. And so my family runs with it, because they’re great and we’re all assholes at heart-”

“I know, Strider.”

“Fuck you, and fuck you, and also, have you considered? Fuck you. But anyway they all hop on board and these poor kids glance at each other and they have _no idea_ they’re being fucked with like they have no goddamned flapjack of a clue and so you know how apparently Eridan and your brother’s kid had beef a while back?”

“Oh you didn’t.”

“So I tell him what you told me when you ever so rudely declined my generous and heartfelt offer to come and join us for Thanksgiving, and he goes ‘wait that sounds like something Karkat Vantas would say,’ and you know what I say?”

“Strider you did _not_ ,” you say, half horrified and half incredibly amused. Well, okay, maybe a little more than half amused.

“I tell him that hey, my husband’s last name is Vantas, he kept it after we got married!”

You burst out laughing, because of course you would get dragged into Strider’s Thanksgiving even if you weren’t there.

“Holy shit you didn’t! Oh my god what did he do?”

“He promptly excused himself from the table and made like a genre aware x-wing pilot trying to help Luke blow up the death star. My kid had to go after him to calm him down. I almost have enough human decency left in me to feel bad for the guy.”

“You have any human decency left?” 

He aims to ruffle your hair and you swat his arm away. “Makeup’s gonna kill you, makeup’s gonna kill you,” you warn as he persists.

“Fuck makeup, I make their paycheck is what makes up.”

“That didn’t even make sense, Strider,” you snort with laughter, continuing to swat the hands that relentlessly pursue you. You jab him in the ribs and grin viciously when it works, like always. He won’t laugh and he sure as _hell_ won’t admit to being ticklish but he will lock up and curl in, face going a hilarious approximation of constipated. Sometimes if you catch him just enough off-guard, he’ll wheeze.

“Oh god, I just had the worst idea,” you say, because you are, indeed, close to hell after all.

“Oh?” Strider asks, invested already.

“What if we convince my family we’re engaged? Like, actually legitimately convince them that you proposed to me? I feel like you have enough dedication to the joke to not get bored after like, a week.”

“Dude a week is weaksauce-” you cuff him for the bad pun, “-we could keep that shit up for ages. I could fake propose to you too, like get a couple of your family members or maybe a photographer failing that and go to a fancy restaurant and I’d be like sup sup got a big announcement and bam, suddenly there’s a knee that’s being knelt on and a ring in my hands and you’re crying big blubbering tears-”

“I _am_ a world class star at those.”

“Don’t I know it. Don’t even make it seem like you’re trying when you get up in front of the camera and start letting those things loose. Like the rains of Papua New Guinea’s densest rainforests, gently cascading down your sepia cheeks-”

“Ding dong, ramble alert,” you interrupt.

“Fuck you thrice over Vantas. But yeah we should totally fake propose. I think I still have this old antique Flora gave me a while back. Real pretty. Got this gorgeous bluish green opal with silver twisting around it. Might be your size?”

“We’ll have to check. How _is_ you sister, anyway?” you ask, since he brought her up.

“Well I could tell you if you would quit interrupting me and let me talk about my Thanksgiving. God, Vantas!”

You roll your eyes as theatrically as you can manage (and you are a very talented actor, you can manage incredibly well). Judy, head queen of the makeup crew, spots you and your hair and heaves a sigh, making you both duck and grin half-apologetically.

\--

You meet up at his place before phase one of your truly massive undertaking of a prank is set to spring into motion. The old antique ring does fit, almost too perfectly, and you are both wearing your best suits. His is bright red and flashy, black and white decals making him the biggest eyesore in any room. Yours is a sensible and reasonable black, finely tailored to your exact shape since you have the money for that now (you’re kind of really not used to that fact just yet. Maybe never). You have a grey tie with a red stripe, since you knew he would be wearing something red and garish, and if this prank is going to work you want it to not only succeed, but thrive, and you need to make yourselves into a matching pair. His suit is already equipped with a black rose as a boutonniere and he gifts you a matching one in red. It’s absurd and romantic and you feel yourself grinning wide as you twist it between your fingers, maybe chuckling a little.

“Pulling out all the stops, Strider?”

“Hell yeah bro, we’re in the shit now, in this for the long haul. We are motherfucking entrenched in this bitch, you and me, welcome to fucking ‘nam. I’m feeling pretty friggin’,” he does a dramatic head snap, his hair swishing to the side like some bad early 2000’s fad, “ _matrimonial,_ all of a sudden.”

You laugh and shove him lightly by the shoulder, rolling your eyes. He laughs as well and holds out his arm, like he’s some goddamned gentleman and not the tackiest piece of gum ever scraped off the bottom of a middle schooler’s desk.

Even so, you take the extended arm and cozy yourself right up next to his side. This might be fake, and definitely just for fun and so you can get back at your family for the endless shit they put you through, but it’s nice to go through these kinds of motions. He even opens the door of his car for you. If this wasn’t fake as hell, you would be feeling pretty wooed. 

“Okay so the photographer’s gonna meet us at the restaurant. You ever been to Milk and Roses?” he says as soon as the ignition is on.

“Oh we are not,” you say, staring at him a little open mouthed as he backs out of his driveway in his ludicrously expensive car. “We are not going to one of the most romantic restaurants in New York City.”

“Oh we absolutely are babe. We are playing this down to the most minute and ridiculous of detail.” 

You laugh again, sitting back against the passenger seat. “Oh my god Strider, I don’t suppose you’re going to pay for my candlelit meal as well, are you?”

“Nah. We’ll go dutch. But in everything else, all the stops, dude, all of them. There are no stops left in the world, we’ve pulled them all out. Suddenly car crashes are piling up at every fourway on the roads, and everyone is screaming at everyone else because they had the right of way but little did they know that no one had the right of way, it was supposed to be a four way stop, but we pulled them all and now there are no little red octagons left for the rest of humanity to adhere to.”

“You know stop signs are actually fucking huge right?”

“Part of the metaphor babe.”

“I know because I stole one with some friends of mine when we were kids.”

“Woah shit really?”

“Yeah, I was about Kankri’s age. We broke into Ross’s dad’s stash of champagne and then decided to steal a road sign.”

“Dude, that’s wicked.”

“Don’t make a Sweet br-”

“I’m gonna make a SBaHJ skit off of that.”

“Fuck you.”

“Anytime, hubbie.” The dick then has the gall to wink at you.

Your arrival at Milk and Roses is marked most notably by the fact that Strider actually thought to make a reservation. Yeah, you chose the right partner for a prank. This guy knows no level of chill. He either doesn’t give a shit and cannot be bothered or will do everything to its most ridiculous extreme and there is no fucking middle ground.

After your meal, which you have quite a lot of snarky banter during, Dave signals to the photographer, who has arrived, and you pull yourself together to put on a convincing and touching- definitely “genuine”- reaction. When he stands, you look confused, and hope the photographer is catching all of this because your theatrics are flawless. Then he kneels down and you widen your eyes, tense up your shoulders in anticipation and start lifting your hands.

“Katai Vantas,” he says as he pulls out the ring, holding it up towards you.

“Oh my god,” you start tearing up and cover your mouth with your hands. It’s actually a very touching scene and very romantic, so it’s not hard to get yourself into the role.

“I love you more than anyone else in my life, and I don’t ever want to be with anyone else.”

“Oh my _god_!”

“Will you do me the intense honor, the intense _pleasure,_ ” the asshole winks, “of becoming my husband and loving me for the rest of our lives together?”

You agree, and the people around clap for you. You start sobbing loudly as he puts the ring on and fling your arms around him, and then the two of you proceed to make out in public. Ugh, this is so weird, you’re really glad it’s Strider and not somebody else because this is just SO weird. But this guy wears weird like he wears shorts in the winter; ie. too often and for no goddamned reason. So it’s chill. You pay and leave, and you barely get the doors on the car closed before you both burst into laughter.

“Oh dude, dude that was perfect!” Strider commends.

“You didn’t do half bad yourself,” you admit through your laughter, “oh god, did you tell the photographer that this was for a prank?”

“Not a word.”

You both burst into even more raucous laughter, and you twist the ring around on your finger.

“I’m keeping this until we call ‘punked,’ right?” you ask, admiring the opal.

“Hell yeah, dude, it would be wicked rude of you not to wear my very heartfelt and touching engagement ring.”

\--

The photos are incredibly professional. You can’t help but admire the lighting and the angles, and, vainly, how genuine the focal matter looks. It honestly seems that you and Dave are in love in the pictures. Your soulful, teary eyes; his earnest, beseeching stance. Quality shit right there.

You and Dave spend the next couple of days after shooting spending the time you’re not on imp duty editing the photos into a card to send to the members of your family. Strider wants to send them to his as well, and keep them in on the joke. You agree, and also, these are quality photos dammit, people should see and appreciate them.

\--

Kanishka, your shit brother, opens his mail on Tuesdays and Saturdays. He makes a morning out of it. So on Tuesday morning, when your phone starts ringing, you cannot help but feel the grin on your face.

“YOU’RE WHAT?” he asks as soon as he hears you pick up, not even waiting for you to say hello.

“Hello, Kanishka.”

“You’re engaged? Why? How!? Who even is this man? You never told us you were dating anyone!!”

“We wanted to keep it private. He’s my boss, Dave Strider, movie extraordinaire. Didn’t want the press breathing down our throats, or our families for that matter, so we kept it quiet. It started out fairly casual, Kanny, didn’t really expect it to get this far but here we-”

“YOU COULD HAVE TOLD US WHEN YOU STARTED GETTING SERIOUS! Does Kankri know? Oh my god did you send one of these cards to my son?”

“I sent them to everyone in the family, Kanny.”

“Please tell me that doesn’t include Daadee.”

“It absolutely does.”

“Oh my god, Katai, are you trying to give everyone in the entire family a heart attack?!?”

“Well I have to let them know somehow! I can’t exactly just send out wedding invitations and let them know _then_ now can I?”

“You could have told us ages ago!!!”

“Well I didn’t. So here we fucking are.”

“Katai, what are we going to do with you?” Kanishka sighs, and you feel so incredibly smug.

“Well, you could help me with the wedding planning, since that needs to happen.”

“Oh. Oh we will. We will.”

You grin viciously.

“You know, I’m happy enough about the recent events that I’m not even going to take that as a bad thing.”

\--

Of course, your family all feels the need to come meet Strider, but you hush them. They will not be coming here, New York is much too expensive and they do not have the funds to haul everybody’s ass over here. You and Dave work out a time in both your schedules to come and visit them.

You fly first class, because you love to roll around in the filth of excess and ridiculousness almost as much as he does, and you are glad there are only two chairs in this aisle because you two would be insufferable to anyone sitting immediately next to you. Far too many dick jokes and you almost raising your voice and screeching before he shushes you and grins because he was planning on riling you up all along.

Your family- wow, oh, wow, that’s like, all of it, everyone, right there, in a swarm- meets you at the airport and most of them insist on touching Dave’s hair, despite the fact that when you talked to them you told them all not to touch his hair when he arrived. Incorrigible, all of them. 

Dave is then harassed with nothing short of a billion and five questions, and he keeps his composure like Frosty the Fucking Snowman up way off in the north fucking pole. You two act lovey, exchanging touches every time you think to, calling each other pet names (his favorite for you are “babe” and “sugar” and a particularly southern “darlin’” while you favor “dear” and “honey”), exchanging smiles even when there’s nothing particularly funny being said- because it’s funny that you’re in on the joke together. Strider positively _hangs_ off of you. You know he’s a touchy dude but god _damn_ if he isn’t clinging to you like a pulpy ass koala rodent clinging to its mother like you’re the goddamned guardian of his life and ability to wear ridiculous and douchey shades.

You two are firmly informed that you will not be sharing a bed while staying at your family members’ places, and you make a great show of being mildly inconvenienced while Strider makes himself look genuinely heartbroken.

“Can’t be gone that long from my dahlin’,” he explains to your grandmother. She swats him and tells him that when she was his age, even just sleeping a few rooms apart was considered scandalous, so he better toughen up. He leans over to you and asks if she had to walk everywhere in snow, uphill, both ways, and liked it, and you stifle a chuckle.

They run him through the wringer a few times, but in his effortless grace and eternal douchebaggary, he emerges unruffled and victorious.

\--

The next time your whole team is gathered in one spot, it’s to fight twin lichs. You’re old enough and you’re all experienced enough that the presence of a lich isn’t call for too much alarm, despite their rarity, but twin lichs are too much for anything other than a full team of grown ass adults with solid synergy and multiple years of experience. Team Mirthful usually covers this area of town, but they are a bunch of fucking kids (oh, pardon you, _adolescents_ ) so you’re not about to lose a team of twelve just because they’ve never been in the correct situations to prepare them for this.

Fi is flitting around afterward, patching everyone up. You still resent her ability to literally _grow wings_ but she’s the Witch of Life, not you. Ania, your Sylph, utilizes her space powers to mend your surroundings, seamlessly patching up buildings and roads and even overturned trashcans so as not to leave a trace of the lichs. You’re pretty sure the area looks better than it did before your crew showed up. In a moment of rare initiative, Equiano approaches you and clears his throat. 

“Pardon, Vantas.”

“What’s that, I didn’t notice you there.”

“Your joke is just as humorous as the other twenty two hundred times you and our companions have made it.” He’s so fun to pick on, if for no other reason than he takes everything simultaneously WAY too fucking seriously and also literally, but nothing ever seems to stick to the guy. You snort at him, but turn to face him fully.

“What’s up?”

“I couldn’t help but notice-” ah yes, the crazy Zahhak observancy. Is there anything that gets past that bullfuck family? You don’t think there is, “-that you’re wearing a rather expensive ring on your left ring finger. I would like to inquire as to why.”

You are acutely aware that you now have the attention of everyone around you.

“Oh my god,” Natalie breathes, and oh shit, ohhhhh you are so in for it now.

“No way,” James says with a giant grin, placing his hand on Natalie’s shoulder, “No motherfucking way!? Seriously? When! Who!?”

You heave a sigh and show off the ring Strider gave you. “So, I guess I have an announcement! I have recently become engaged.”

“WHO!!!” James demands, rushing forward and grabbing you by the shoulders, beaming wildly at you. You’re almost convinced to feel bad about this.

“Dave Strider, my asshole boss.”

“When did you two even start dating!?” Natalie shrieks as you find yourself surrounded by a large number of bodies.

“Why didn’t you _tell us?!_ ” Adria questions.

"Is it because he's rich?" Theresa teases.

“I will be speaking with him,” Ania calmly informs you, and you really hope her version of defensive mom friend doesn’t include her chainsaw.

“Seriously you could’ve at least made mention that you were taken,” Daniel pouts.

“Dibs on best man,” Alex claims, and you have just enough brainspace to flip him off.

“Okay okay okay!” you holler, cutting off the excited babbling and intense questioning. “We started dating a while back, we didn’t make any mention of it because we didn’t want it to become a big fucking deal since we thought it’d be just some casual dating thing.”

“Oh Katai,” Natalie says sympathetically, “nothing romantic could _ever_ be _casual_ for you.”

“I could’a told you that, if you’d told _me_ ,” James chimes in, looking a little wounded you’d hid this from him. Oh, oh yeah, okay, you feel sort of bad about that. Not enough to break face though. You are, if nothing else, an amazing actor after all.

“Sorry James. But regardless of whether I was actually capable or not, I thought I was, and so we started dating and he was cute and romantic and a big bag of dicks and whoops now I’m ass over heels and we’re going to get married.”

“Katai that’s so EXCITING!” Fi shrieks, crowding in past Alex to grab your arm elatedly. Her expression doesn’t change but her voice drops low, suddenly grave. “You _will_ be hiring me as your florist.”

“Wasn’t planning on anybody else,” you say, because the best course of action is to absolutely pretend that you are and have always been on the same page as Fi about this. Her voice brightens back to match her expression.

“Great! What colors are you thinking!?”

“Fi it literally _just_ happened.”

“And yet, you still didn’t tell us immediately,” Ross points out. You flip him off. After everything settles down, Equiano and Natalie are the only ones still hovering around you.

“You know," Natalie says, sounding casual which means you’re absolutely about to get your ass pounced thoroughly and mercilessly, “Equiano couldn’t help but notice that you went and visited your family not too long ago. So it’s just _awfully_ interesting to us that you’re saying your engagement that you didn’t tell us about _just_ happened.”

You sigh and glance sideways at them. If anyone is going to ruin this prank, Equiano with his absurd observancy and sense of honesty that parodies blunt force trauma is gonna be the one.

“I apologize, okay? This isn’t exactly the easiest thing for me to just randomly bring up.”

Natalie tilts her head, and you can see gears whirring behind that innocently neutral expression but you’re not sure which gears. Then she grins, catlike and terrifying, and pats Equiano’s shoulder.

“This is going to end really well,” she informs you, and she doesn’t actually sound sarcastic, “I hadn’t been able to pinpoint why, but you _have_ been getting steadily happier as you’ve grown closer to him, huh? The more you talk about him, the more willing you’ve been to laugh.”

She flashsteps behind you and thumps you between the shoulderblades. “I’m happy for you, Katai!”

Then she and Equiano head back to their home together, and you stare after them, feeling like now you’re the one who isn’t in on the joke.

See? Short people. Closer to hell.

\--

You get an email from Ania’s godniece, who you’re pretty sure is her cousin’s daughter but fuck if you know what family title goes for that.

I Would Just Like To Inform You That Eridan And I Have Both Already Been Subjected To This Prank And We Know That The Engagement Is Facetious So Please Do Not Be Alarmed If Neither Of Us React Appropriately To The Jape.

Oh god that’s fucking precious. You write out a thanks for the warning and idly inquire after her health, and if she’s staying on top of imps, and if her team is working together well. You can never bring yourself to be anything other than unnecessarily polite to a Maryam. It strikes some deep and primal instinct in you of “yes this one good.” Not that you’ll admit that.

Seeing her email does remind you to send out engagement cards to the members of your team, though.

\--

You make the mistake of letting your kid know when you’ll next have a break in your work schedule, and he, the loudmouth AND suckup that he is, tells your brother, who, also being a loudmouth and a suckup, tells the rest of your family. They insist you bring Strider when you come and visit them on your break, since _clearly_ that is what you _will_ be doing.

Dave is amicable, which you’re grateful for. Helping you prank your family means he has to actually interact with them, which you wouldn’t wish on anyone- except wait, you would. You would absolutely wish this hellfuckery on Strider, may he writhe tortuously much like you have your entire fucking life with these globular tar leaves. Strider does insist on a hotel this time though, and you agree. You had to take the couch so that the guest could take your old room, with its archaic bed that has more lumps than the backside of a particularly bumpy toad. You’re pretty sure that bed is as old as your grandmother, and you are a grown ass man with a kid of your own. If she keeps at it the way she is, she’ll live long enough to see her GREAT-great-grandchildren, provided your sister’s kid gets married and has babies because you will actively eat your burger king sandwich wrapping paper if Kankri or Karkat manages to land so much as a steady significant other, much less a spouse willing to have kids with one of those hellfucks.

The two of you have been working on refining this prank, coming to conclusions over colors and what season you want to have the wedding (fall, since it will work the best with the color scheme you’ve chosen, and also it’s not ridiculously far away and this prank needs to end SOMETIME). Fi is your eager florist, making suggestions and giving you pointers, and Ania wants to tailor the outfits for you both. Adria insists that there should be skulls at your wedding, which Strider then took and fucking ran with so you guess your fake wedding is going to involve many jars of preserved dead things and some cleaned bones that the two of them had found on their own individual time. That conversation was incredibly animated and went on for a really long time and you’re glad Adria got a new friend out of it with your “fiance” despite how migraine inducing it was to listen to those two babble on about the best ways to decompose random dead shit they find so they can extract the bones from it. You think they’re planning on buying a greenhouse together for decomposition. You were trying your fucking hardest to ignore that part.

So you’re on your A-game when your family starts pestering you with questions and making suggestions. Late that night, you finally escape from their clutches and the two of you make your way to the hotel after promising your grandmother at least eight times that you two will get separate rooms.

It wasn’t like you weren’t planning on that anyway. You can appreciate some good old fashioned cuddling and Strider is your bro, but sharing a bed _all night_ would be so weird.

“I’m sorry sirs, but we only have one room left tonight,” the desk clerk tells you. You know for a fact that this is the only hotel in town (the only one that doesn’t have bedbugs, and you are wealthy enough now that you will never, ever risk that kind of epidermal agony again), so you sigh. It’s too late for you to want to go all the way back to your family’s place now.

“Eh, I’m cool if you are,” Strider says, perpetually unflappable by the more insignificant woes of life. His casual shrug has to be practiced, nobody moves that gracefully and fluid on their own.

“Fine, fine, please tell me it’s at least got two beds?” you ask the clerk. She smiles apologetically at you.

“Aaaactually… it’s a single queen.”

You thunk your head down on the reception desk (it’s about the perfect height for you to do that) and Strider, ever-insufferable, starts laughing.

“Eyaaaa, senpai~” he says and you shove him.

“Fuck you. If you’re gonna be like that you’re paying.”

“I got it,” he says, handing the receptionist his card. “But I’m also gonna be like that. All night. You will bemoan that you ever left your lovely and delightful family for this.”

“So glad you get along with your in-laws to be.”

“Oh?” the receptionist asks happily, and whoops, looks like you’re going to prank her now, too.

“We’re engaged,” Strider says, proud but also smug, and you lift your hand.

“Oh congratulations!” she says, “Oh, that’s so pretty, too!”

“Isn’t it though,” he asks, still proud, and you hipcheck him. You get your keys and go to the room, and it’s quaint. A box with a bed, but with a nice painting on the wall and favorable scents for the complimentary shampoo and conditioner. Strider showers first, and you get to see him in all his ridiculousness, wet haired, shades off, only a towel around his waist and one in the hands on his hair, when he comes out.

“Your turn,” he informs you.

“No, I was gathering my things and getting up just for the health benefits of regular exercise. I never would’ve fucking guessed.”

He laughs and tosses the towel he’d been using on his hair at you, which makes you snort before you fling it back at him. You shove him as you pass him, and he bodychecks you in return, both of you chuckling at your own foolishness.

You bring your pajamas into the bathroom with you, like a _sensible_ person, and when you come back out he’s in something ridiculous, which you expected. He’s wearing footie pajamas, with card suits all over it, flipping through TV channels. 

“Is everything you do impossibly absurd?” you ask, judging his nightclothes, judging them hard. You sort of feared that he’d be wearing something ridiculous by way of silken and extravagant and your own worn t and sweatpants would be slobbish in comparison, but you were not expecting him to wear something stupid and outrageous like grown ass adult footie pajamas.

He rolls onto his side, propping his elbow on the bed and head on his hand, and lifts one leg straight up into the air. 

“Yes.”

“I can see you smirking, asshole.”

“Oh _no!_ ” he cries, flipping onto his back and clutching his chest as though stabbed. “No, you’ve seen me emote! The curse laid upon me as a babe has now come to pass, and I will die most gruesomely. Prepare thyself to see mine intestines fling forth from my open maw.” He makes the “bluuuuuh” noise of poorly acted death and lets his mouth flop open, going limp on the bed, and you roll your eyes, stifling your laugh. If you laugh it means he wins. You sit your ass down on the bed next to him and go straight for his sides, which has his jerking up and curling in, a teakettle whir of air pressing out between his now-clamped lips. 

“Dick,” he wheezes, shoving your hands off of him. You snort and catch one of his hands that wanders towards your side to return the favor. 

“Hell no.”

“Unfair!”

“Life’s not fair,” you tell him, sounding condescending. He rolls his eyes and settles, leaving his wrist in your grip in a display of careful carelessness. Look how much he doesn’t mind that you have him trapped in your vice. He is so unconcerned about this. You observe his pale fingers and shift your hand so you can thumb at his ring finger, bare where yours is not.

“We should get you a ring, it’d be weird if I was the only one to have one the whole engagement.”

“Mmm, what kind though? Not diamond.”

“Not diamond,” you agree, “something thematic? Maybe fire opal, since red is your color?”

“Oo, that could be sweet.”

“We can look around,” you offer, “but you should definitely get one.”

“Agreed. We’ll make a date out of it.” 

You snort at his choice of phrasing and sneer at him. “Yes, _honey_.”

“Anything for you, _sugar_.” You both laugh, and you release his hand.

“Turn the TV off and go to bed, asshole, if we don’t show up with the sun my family _will_ end us.”

“I have a hard time imagining your sweet, dear, precious Aunt Kel ending anybody.”

“She once shoved a beer bottle through the eye of a man harassing her daughter.”

“I have a hard time imagining her ending anybody she likes.”

You snort, and get up to walk to the side of the bed and get underneath the covers. Strider crawls like a fucking animal up the bed rather than just standing like a normal fucking person, and once under he invades your personal space like its his to live in. His hair has dried enough that it doesn’t stick to his forehead and instead hangs down, framing his face as he smirks down at you.

“Heyyyyyyyyy,” he says in the most obnoxious voice he can manage. You roll your eyes. Normally you’d be huffy and put upon, but you _do_ need to sleep if you plan on getting enough rest before morning. You’re not kids anymore, you can’t mess up your sleep schedules like you used to.

You flip him over so he’s the one on his back and cage him in with your arms, which might be shorter than his but are considerably stronger.

“Hey,” you say, sultry as your acting knows how to make you. It works like a charm. His eyes go wide and his stupid lips part ever so slightly, totally locked up. Strider’s pallid ass skin hides nothing, and you’re pretty sure you could get him red to his ears if you kept on like this. You cannot keep on like this, though, because you have won and this is fucking _hilarious._ You slowly pfffft and break into laughter, which only makes him go from surprised to actively embarrassed, snapping out of his stupor to shove you off of him and call you a bag of cocks.

“Oh my- oh my god Strider!” you say, laughing so hard that words are a challenge. 

“You humongous dick!”

“Dude, do you- do you have any idea what your face looks like right now?” you ask, wheezing, draping your palm onto your forehead and hugging your stomach as you mock him.

“That was so rude and uncalled for!” 

You say nothing, just continue laughing at him until he hits you with a pillow, at which point you try to reel it in. You can’t help the occasional snigger, though.

You two try to settle in, but each time one of you manages to get comfortable, the other has a hard time placing his arm or leg or is laying weird. It goes on for maybe ten minutes of awkward, mostly silent shuffling with pauses in between, before Strider finally huffs and goes “Oh fuck it, come here.”

He wraps his arms around you and spoons you and you- well, you accept. Cuddling is nice, and you have plenty of experience being the little spoon. Dave is cooler than you and you hold his hands in your own, because you know he’ll find a way to put them on your neck and be a jerk right as you’re about to fall asleep otherwise. It’s comfortable, and it _has_ been a while since you’ve had a partner, so you might be a little lacking in the physical affection department so maybe this is actually just really nice.

Physically comfortable, you find yourself still incapable of falling asleep. The image of Dave, hair askew and mouth slightly parted, flushed and caught so off guard it lead to vulnerability, haunts you. The more you try not to think about the way his hands landed just to the sides of his shoulder and neck, the more it plagues you. The more you try to shove your memory of how solid his torso was underneath you and how neatly he fit inside your limbs, the more that memory asserts itself.

Ohhhh fuck. Fuck you did not win. You did not win at all and this is fucking bullshit.

\--

You get over your crisis and move on, because you are not some blushing teenager with a crush. One evening spent worrying about the man at your back does not an infatuation make. You’re a man with a career and a side job killing otherworldly entities, and things fall into a comfortable routine. You film, and then you and Strider spend an hour or two after work hanging out, discussing wedding ideas and often splitting a case of hard soda. You frequently go to his place, since he is a fucking slob who leaves his shit everywhere and you would prefer to keep your home clean, and on the nights you do not immediately have to run off and fight imps or do errands or phone a family member, you often spend the whole evening with him, just exchanging jokes and coining oddball ideas for the wedding you’re going to have. He is particularly adamant about the presence of unicorn shaped balloons that have whipped cream sprayed onto the ridge for a mane. You argue against it, but then remember that this wedding is _fake_ and concede. 

Sometimes, on nights when you’ve had a little too much to drink or just don’t feel like hailing a cab, you spend the night on Strider’s couch, though he has offered you the winning invitation of sharing a bed with him again, winking and draping himself over the back of the couch in a display of bafoonery. You poke his bellybutton and _politely_ decline. He’s taken to leaving sheets underneath the far right couch cushion, so you don’t have to sift through his linens every time you stay the night.

\--

His family is in on it, of course, not only because he told them but also because your family found their contact information (probably through Kanishka if you’re right (which you are (because short people are closer to hell and he’s even shorter than you))) and they of course played along. Glad to know that your in-laws will all be assholes, but reliable ones. But you have to go and make friendly with those fakey-fake “soon to be in-laws” so you get invited to Easter at their place.

It is, as one might predict, an absolute disaster. Danny’s nephew and Ania’s godniece are there as well, which is awkward and awkward twice over. 

“You know we know you’re not actually gettin’ hitched, right?” Eridan asks you, and the part of you that is hellbent and dedicated to this prank wins out over the reasonable part of you. You look him dead in the eye, face schooled and a single eyebrow arching (it took you weeks in front of a mirror to figure out how to make your face do that), and you can see him start to wilt.

“You realize we’re actually engaged, right?” you answer back, lifting the hand with the very, very impressive ring that is in fact of an engagement variety on it. Ampora flounders impressively, starts blushing, and then mutters out an apology. 

“That’s what I thought,” you say, and the kid shrivels up so astoundingly you almost have it in you to feel bad about it.

Kanaya also tries to tell you she’s not buying it, but you huff and roll your eyes and tell her, “Yes I know you don’t believe us,” so snidely that you think she might be doubting herself. It’s the rudest you’ve ever been to a Maryam. You silently send a prayer to any god listening that this doesn’t have permanent consequences because you aren’t sure what’s come over you.

Then Dave is insisting on snuggling up to you at the table and playing footsie with you and wants to feed you and you are so caught up in the act of being over the top cutesy that you let him feed you and you feed him back, picking strawberries out of your fruit salad and holding them up to him with the most saccharine and lovey dovey of smiles you know how to place. You are also perfectly willing to admit that part of why you’re so eager to play along is to see if you are actually capable of making his shit family uncomfortable. Flora and Roxanne seem to be entertained and unbothered, Rose and Roxy are attempting to hold a normal conversation and seem to be ignoring you, and Dave Jr. and Dirk Jr. simply look constipated. They’ve got a ways to go on those neutrality masks they think they have. Dirk Jr. is managing to hold out impressively given the circumstances- as you hitch your leg up over Dave Sr.’s, and croon about how nice he’s going to look come fall (which you both giggle insufferably at)- but even so he still looks mightily uncomfortable, which is the point. 

“Terribly cold weather we’ve been having, haven’t we?” Flora asks, and something about her tone makes you- well, you don’t pause, but you key in just a little.

“Indeed,” Rose agrees, and Roxanne and Roxy don’t seem to know what they’re discussing but they’re snickering at it anyway, “unusually cold for this late into the year, the weatherman is predicting snow tonight.”

“Well, seeing as there are two Seers in this room at the moment, we could probably figure out if that’s a fact or not,” Dave Sr. says, breaking from his goo-goo eyes at you but making up for it by petting the hair at the nape of your neck. Oh, that’s the good shit. You rest your head on his shoulder and you hear Eridan all but whimper in what sounds like pain. You can’t really be damned to worry about Danny’s nephew, though, because Dave’s fingers feel really nice in your hair and it really has been too long since you’ve had a partner. After you and Dave Sr. call “gotcha” on all of this you really need to take dating seriously and actually go out looking.

“It’s very likely going to snow tonight,” Flora says, with a smug sort of satisfaction that you’d be more concerned about if Dave Sr. wasn’t gently scritching at your skin. You feel like a cat. Purr purr motherfuckers. 

The evening goes simply enough, Dave Sr. and you making assholes out of yourselves just as often as you make ushy-gushy messes of yourselves, and you’re in the guest bedroom because of “propriety” and “being responsible” which basically boils down to the people around you “don’t trust you not to start fucking if you’re in the same room together” which is bullshit, and everyone is aware that it’s bullshit, but everyone is continuing to play along anyway. You note that the guest bedroom is not exactly well maintained. The windowpane rattles and is slightly drafty. It should be fine, since the blanket you have is thick, and there’s a radiator. This mansion is old, an antique like many of the things in it, and Flora has helpfully informed you that her home has a radiator in each room for heating because it would damage the house’s integrity to try and upgrade it to a centralized heating system. She’s probably just bragging, so you don’t really care why she felt the need to inform you of that.

Until you do. The radiator breaks down right before you fall asleep, making a concerning noise, and then it’s just you, your blanket, and the draft. You convince yourself you will be fine.

You are not fine. It’s fucking _cold_ in here. You eventually decide that the cold is worse than the desire not to move, and you stomp up to Dave’s room and throw open the door. He’s the one who invited you on this shitty holiday (nevermind that you didn’t want to spend your break with your family anyway), he’s the one who gets to fix the fact that you shut the door on an incredibly frigid fucking iceblock of a room.

“Holy FUCK!” he shouts when you crawl into bed with him and press your freezing little gremlin hands up under his shirt to soak his warmth.

“Your sister planned this,” you mutter angrily. These damn Seers. Can’t trust them. You love Theresa but you sure as hell don’t trust her, and you wouldn’t trust Flora or Rose as far as you can toss them.

“Get your fucking ice cube fingers off my fucking stomach,” Dave is protesting, but all his wrestling away from you only makes you latch on tighter. You have so many siblings and so, so many cousins, you are well versed in the art of fucking winning and you tell Strider exactly as much.

“You’re fucking _cold_ ,” Dave protests.

“Cry me a fucking river of hot tears, lampfucker.”

Dave twists and turns a little more, struggling away from you, but you have latched on and are now leeching his warmth, he cannot escape. He finally huffs and surrenders, turning to you and hugging you.

“Did you at least bring the blanket from your room, if you’re going to insist on stealing my warmth?” Dave asks, and you mutter and half let go of him long enough to haul it up off the floor. Then your hand is back on his shoulder and you let him futz with the damn thing. You are pressing your face into his obnoxiously good smelling chest and clawing heat from him like you’re half dead.

“Why are you this fucking _cold?_ ” Dave mutters.

“Too stubborn, didn’t want to get up after the radiator died.”

“Bruh,” Dave complains, sounding exasperated.

“Shut the fuck up and deal with it, asslicker. I’m tired and cold and you’re warm and this bed is soft, now go the fuck to sleep.”

“There’s a bedtime story that has that title,” Dave informs you.

“Do you want me to read it to you?” you ask condescendingly, taking a mocking voice that parodies what you might use for children, “Read you a beddy-bye story for sleepytimes?”

Dave looks you dead in the eye and says, straightfaced, “Yes daddy.”

Your choke and your cheeks heat and you slowly, slowly inhale, closing your eyes and letting go of his back and that precious warmth in order to pinch your nose.

“I don’t believe this.”

“Oh, _daddy_.”

“We both have children, how is this not uncomfortable for you?”

“That’s my secret, Katai, I’m always uncomfortable.”

You shove his face which gets him laughing, and you grumble some about how Avengers isn’t even that great and Marvel is a terrible franchise anyway.

“Woah man, Marvel is an icon of the ages, don’t hate.”

“I will hate every single thing that has ever come out of anyone’s mouth ever and I will enjoy it,” you bark stubbornly. You hear Dave huff and the asshole finally starts trying to rub warmth into your back. 

“Seriously dude, you’re normally a fucking furnace how long was the radiator out that you’re this fucking cold?”

“No idea,” you grumble and note, distantly, that he’s not wearing footie pajamas this time. Must not have been expecting people to see him in a regular t and pj pants.

You bite down on the feeling of affectionate amusement at the fact that Dave fucking Strider is the only person you know who is ridiculous enough that he will actually dress with greater absurdity when there are people over. 

\--

Summer is a busy season, not only in your acting career but also because you’re planning this wedding in earnest. You and Dave both have the money- though really it’s mostly that Dave has the money, since a good half of your paycheck that doesn’t go to rent and utilities goes straight to your extremely extensive family- that you can make these arrangements and pay these people. You’ve agreed that the “wedding reception” will actually just be a regular party, a sort of “sorry we’ve spent the last few months pranking your collective asses except not really because this is hilarious” crossed with a “we hardly ever get the whole family together like this and also deserve to unwind sometimes.”

Kanishka has insisted on being the priest at your “wedding” itself, which is fine. All the better for you to get a sweet, sweet close up of his face when you say “I do not,” in response to being asked if you will take Dave as your lawfully wedded husband. You plan to savor the face he’s going to make from now until your grave. 

Pretending to date/be engaged to Dave is coming with unforseen perks. Not only is it hilarious to get people thinking that you’re engaged, but it’s also just genuinely pleasant to go out and do romantic shit with him. You go ring shopping and find him a beautiful ring with a fire opal, one you insist on putting on him as soon as it’s purchased. It’ll fit on his other ring finger, so after the prank he can continue wearing it. Sliding it onto his finger is- 

You’re not saying you miss your ex-wife. You have had plenty of time to move on, and given how terrible that relationship was, it’s perfectly reasonable that divorce was the outcome. Honestly, insisting on carrying that relationship on would’ve just been dragging yourselves through the mud- dragging your _son_ through the mud- and the healthiest course of action was to cut off the rotting limb before it infected everything else. You made so many mistakes with her, things you have agonized over again and again.

But you are saying that sliding a ring onto Dave’s finger, going through those motions that you went through so many years ago- but this time with Dave- it’s nice. It feels like a new beginning. Not in the way that it looks like to an outside viewer, but like you’re finally giving yourself permission to let it go, to just have _fun_ with this. You do not think to elaborate on what “this” might be. But the past is in the past, and right now you have Dave, and you have you, and you have blowing straw wrappers at each other in the Arby’s because while you are fully grown adult men with children of your own you are still both asshole teenagers at heart. 

Another perk of dating Dave is that since you've both pulled out all the stops, it’s really, really nice to go through the motions of wooing and being wooed. He shows up at your place with chocolate roses and a case of hard cider and the two of you will inevitably get buzzed and shoot the shit. You cook for him and clean up after his messy ass and he uses you as a sounding board for his new ideas and upcoming projects. You call ahead like a decent fucking human being and go to his place for pizza and movie nights, in which you both watch something you’ve already seen and he puts up with your endless commentary. Sometimes, if the two of you are feeling especially fancy, you’ll go _together_ to see new movies worth seeing in the theaters. It is a testimony to your friendship that he does not call off the engagement after the first time. You’re insufferable to go to the movies with, you are well a-fucking-ware, but he seems more humored by your leaning over and whispering in his ear every ten seconds than anything, just eats his popcorn and snorts at whatever jokes you crack. After the third or fourth movie you go out together to see, he starts leaning towards you and making jokes of his own. It’s the best. It’s the _worst_. He’s totally enabling you and everyone around you gets so pissed, seeing as you have the indoor voice of a fire alarm. 

Dave is a touchy dude. Always after that physical affection. And while your body might be a walking garbage can that no one in their right mind would willingly touch, much less cuddle their bodies up close to, Dave seems to enjoy the feeling of being greasy and disgusting because he grows gradually all over you. And by gradually you mean not at all. Each time he learns you’re only going to get loud but not _actually_ stop him from draping his lanky asshole body over yours, he does it with exponential frequency. There’s a fucking j-curve out there somewhere detailing the amount of touching you Dave is doing. It’s. Yeah. It’s nice. 

You also like having him around when you’re on imp duty. You don’t need his help, and you make sure he knows you absolutely do not need his help and you are perfectly capable of handling things on your own, but it’s less of a chore that your team needs you to do because it’s your turn on the rotation when he’s there. It’s more like a game. See who can squish the imp first, and show all the fuck of the way off while doing it. You flex your arms as you clench your sickles a little more than strictly necessary, and he does some truly acrobatic pirouettes. You finally have to yell at him that this is a battlefield, not a stage, when he decides to pause fighting in order to pose dramatically and flex his skinny noodle arm at you. But you are an actor and he’s a dramatic bitch, so neither of you actually stop showing off. What can you say? You both thrive on the attention of others. 

Fall is here sooner than you expect it. You’re seeing more and more of your family, finalizing plans and checking up on reservations and picking out wedding clothing for all of them and selecting a flower girl from your many nieces/cousins/however the fuck they’re related to you. Your family offers to let Dave pick the ring bearer from his family but he declines, since nobody in his family is really young enough for that. His kid is a teenager in high school, see. His nephew is too and he’s the youngest, see. He does get the honor of choosing the ring bearer from your family, though, and you tell him he either picks Devaj or Ojas but nobody else. Those two are the only ones well-behaved enough that they won’t give you a headache, to which Dave responds that if he chooses someone else does that mean you’re going to insist on him giving you a head massage. You tell him he can’t give massages for shit and he asks if that’s a challenge and somehow you end up sitting on a footrest in front of him with his fingers on your temples and scalp and you are in fucking seventh heaven holy shit why are this asshole’s stupid perfect piano fingers so good at this this is not fair. 

Kissing Dave in front of your family/his family/in public is now commonplace enough that it doesn’t even register anymore. Kissing Dave is enjoyable, too. He’s way better at it than some of the people you’ve had to kiss over your acting career. Plus his lips are soft and he smells nice. He also kisses with more than just his mouth, with you have an appreciation for, he’ll lift his hand up to your hip and leave it gently resting there or slide those evil, evil fingers up your jaw and half bury them up to the second knuckle in your hair. He’ll gently hold you by the elbow and stroke his thumb over the softer inside skin on the rare days you wear short sleeves or hook his arm behind your neck to plant a sideways kiss on you or slide his hand up over the back of your hand where you’re touching him and run it up along your arm or when you hold his face he’ll reach up and grab the back of your hand and it’s so damn comfortable you’ll blink a disoriented second or two when you remember that you’re not _actually_ kissing Dave Strider because you’re the love interest to his protagonist and none of this is _real._

You see more and more of your team, too. Fi is a phenomenal florist and the arrangements she has planned out are so lovely. Theresa teases you more often and swings by your place to ask after wedding plans, and can she wear a tux (yes) can she wear a dress (yes) can she show up in her dragon fursuit and swing around on the chandelier (no) can she pop out of the wedding cake wearing only nipple tassles and a thong (no). Equiano and Natalie you see and you can’t believe it but you actually try to engage with Equiano and ignore Natalie during those visits, for the first time in your life. He might be irritating but he’s made great strides since you were all young and stupid, and is genuinely interested in how your career and engagement is going, showing an earnest investment in your well-being. Natalie just looks.

Smug.

Danny and Ross want to help out however they can, and Ross offers to release doves at the wedding. You don’t even call Dave up to ask, you agree on the spot. That is so extravagant and extra holy shit you _have_ to. 

Dave, predictably, immediately asks, “You said yes right?” when you tell him of Ross’s offer. 

\--

A month before the wedding, your apartment complex catches fire. You and your stuff escapes unscathed, luckily, you were on the far side of the building, but many people lost a great deal in the fire and the whole complex is shut down. Which means you are currently out on the street, in New York, with no family for miles.

“Hey Strider,” you say into the phone.

“Woah, someone’s having a bad day. Ogre?”

“Apartment fire.”

“Holy fuck are you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m one of the only ones who made it out without losing anything. Except my home.” You inhale deeply, bracing yourself for what you have to ask. “Mind if I camp out at your place until I find another place to stay?”

“Holy shit.” You can hear him smirking through the phone and you quietly seethe. “Oh my god we’re gonna be _roomies_.” You hear a door slam, and a small part of you, a tiny teeny part, unwinds just a bit. 

“I am going to be the worst roommate you have ever had in your life, boss, you just fucking wait and you can bet your left asscheek on it.”

“Not a safe bet. I ever complain about Will to you? Will was a fucking asshole, and not the fun kind. Not the kind of asshole that’s just begging for a sweet cock to penetrate the flowering bud but like, a genuine, bonafide asshole caked in shit that hasn’t been washed in weeks and has ingrown hairs peppering it.”

“Thank you, Dave, for every mental image you have just given me.”

“Yeah I’ll swing by and help you carry your shit in a few. On my way.”

“Thanks.”

You are not shaking when he picks you up. You are a hardened adult who fights monsters for a living and has (mostly) successfully raised a child and you are not shaking over the fact that you have recently witnessed a good portion of the building your home was located in burning down, you are not shaking at the fact that you are basically homeless right now, you are absolutely not shaking.

“Hey, dude,” he says, up in your apartment as you’re hauling items into boxes and totes and suitcases. “Seriously, just, take a second.” His voice is unhelpfully gentle and you already feel this fucking close to crying.

“I’m not tired,” you say.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, and then he’s in your space, hand on your back and one at your elbow, coaxing you to sit down and take a deep breath.

“It’ll be fine,” he tells you as you pinch your nose and breathe deeply, fighting tears because in all honesty, you’re not even somebody who has any reason to cry in this situation. You were not standing on the sidewalk watching your home go up in flames as you waited for the firefighters to arrive. You just feared you were going to, as you watched the flames slowly crawl their way across the complex. It’s not even that big of a deal, you could have gotten off so much worse.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he tells you softly, sliding his arms around your shoulders and holding you to his chest and you are an _adult man_ you should not be crying into him but you do. You cry on his shoulder, not half as messy or blubbery as you did when you were Kankri’s age, but you just. Let it out. You cry and he pets your hair and rubs circles in your back and you feel the tension and anxiety at almost losing basically everything you own fade out.

“C’mon,” you say when you’re only left sniffling and wiping at your reddened eyes. “We gotta get my shit outta here, let’s move. We don’t have all day.”

“Wow, asshole,” Dave says, hoisting his lanky ass self up into the air with more drama than he needs to. “I open up my tender and loving heart to you, my fiance, and you just tell me to get back to work?”

“You’ll live,” you mutter wryly, a smile coming to your face at his theatrics.

“The cruelty. The malice. My little southern heart isn’t built to process this kind of scorn.”

“Your little heart is as shriveled up and tiny as your dick is, Strider, and everyone knows that the farther south you are the higher the probability that you’re a demon.”

“I grew up in Texas.”

“See, that’s just all the proof I need right there.”

The banter is familiar and more helpful than you care to admit, just talking shit with Dave. You’re packing your stuff and moving forever but you’re also just talking smack and it’s keeping your mind from working itself back up into a fit and even you aren’t enough of an ass that you don’t bonk your head against his shoulder and mutter a “thanks” after all your stuff is packed into your and his cars. He pats your back and tells you to drive safe. 

You get your shit in a storage unit and begin meticulously calling up your family members. Daadee tells you that at least the wedding is only a month away, and you would’ve been needing to move out of that apartment soon anyway. It must be some kind of sign, prompting you two to move in together early so you can settle in before you’re newlyweds. You tell her thanks and bite back a sigh. You cannot sigh at your grandmother. Not even after hanging up. She will hear you. 

Kanishka tries to be supportive, and that at least you can appreciate. Your sister is also the only other one on your side, while the rest of your family is giggling at your misfortune and at the fact that you’ve had to move in with your fiance early. You’re pretty sure you have the only family in the world that is nigh cursed with the terrible affliction of needing to gawp and giggle at anyone and everyone who is having a worse day than they are. And they wonder why you don’t tell them shit.

“So have you finally decided on what you’re going to do for your honeymoon?” your mother asks after you explain your situation.

“No, like we said, we’re very busy with this shooting, the honeymoon will wait until we find a break in between movies.”

“But you at least have an idea of what you want to do, where you want to go?”

“Personally I’d like to go and visit India, see what the fuss you and dad and Daadee make over it is all about.”

“Take pictures,” your mother demands, and then has to hang up to do something or another.

“India huh?” Dave asks.

“Wow, fucking eavesdropper,” you say, scooting over on the couch so there’s room for him.

“You know, after this movie is done we could go. Just for like, the hell of it and whatever.”

You snort, “I’d like that. My Hindi is passable and plenty of people will know English well enough that you won’t be completely stranded when you inevitably get your dumb ass lost.”

“I’ll wear a ‘If lost return to Katai’ shirt,” Dave suggest with a smile. 

“You realize that if we do go, I will not be the only person within a million mile radius who has the name Katai.”

“That’s why you’ve gotta wear the matching shirt,” Dave says and you laugh at his foolishness. It’s familiar with him, and familiar here, so that makes losing your apartment a little (a lot) more bearable. 

\--

A week later, your back is really starting to protest sleeping on the couch. Once every now and then is fine but you really do need a bed. Dave theatrically offers to share bed space, and you look him in the eye and accept. It’s not like you haven’t shared a bed before, and the look on his face when you actually take him up on the offer is a genuine emotion of some form or another and you always count getting Dave to genuinely emote as some kind of victory, though you’ve been winning a lot lately. Your coworkers on set have begun to comment on it. 

His body fits against yours well, and the bed smells like him, which is infuriating because you really, _really_ like the way he smells. Neither of you take off your rings when you go to sleep anymore. You’re more comfortable with them on, and sometimes, when you notice it, you mourn the fact that you’re going to have to give yours back to him soon. It really is just so, so lovely, and it fits you incredibly well. 

You make coffee in the morning before you shower, because a Katai in the morning who has not had coffee is not a Katai that is presentable to sentient company, and Dave drinks like half the pot before you get out of the shower. Then one of you will make breakfast, or if you’re both feeling lazy you’ll pour out cereal and drink coffee while reading over your phones in companionable silence. 

You’re busy enough with the wedding planning, finalizing everything and whatnot, that you’ve just decided that you’ll really start looking for a new apartment after you call out “psych.” Dave is fine with you freeloading. He’s a shitty roommate who leaves his shit all over the place and plays his music too loud but at least you get to be a shitty roommate who starts shouting at your computer screen at two in the morning and has loud conversations with your family in the living room right back.

\--

“Dave, don’t,” you say, staring at him in exasperation. He glances at the faucet, then back at you.

“I am telling you right fucking now, Strider, don’t you fucking dare.”

He looks at the faucet again, seemingly called to it like one might be by a siren. 

“Dave.”

He turns the faucet on.

“Don’t you dare!”

He looks back at you.

“Strider I swear if you-”

He presses the button that turns the faucet from pouring to spraying, and douses you with it. You screech at him and lurch forward to wrestle it out of his hands, thoroughly soaked. What kind of water pressure does this apartment even have? (Amazing, that’s what, you are never leaving and if you do you’re taking his entire shower with you, god.)

In the aftermath you glower at him, wet and dripping.

“Why do you do these things you do?”

“Mostly because you told me not to.”

“Oh, yeah, great fucking reason asshole.”

You watch as Strider slowly sinks into the splits, doing jazz hands all the way down. “I have problems with authority” he informs you, deadpan, and you just- _sigh_.

“Great,” you mutter, prying your damp sweater off your disgusting filth body. It is then that you realize you did this _in front of Dave_ , who is now staring at you.

“Oh shut the fuck up Strider, if you didn’t want to see my rotting corpse of a body you shouldn’t have sprayed me!” you quip, turning from him because you feel more disgusting like this than you did that one time you got drunk enough to let loose and throw cheetos at Dave, getting cheese powder on everything including yourself.

“Nah, nah dude,” Dave says, eyes crawling down your form (they keep jerking back up to your face like he’s trying really, really hard to be respectful and not look at you), “You look good.”

You notice the way his face tinges red, but pretend not to, hastening out of the kitchen because, if you think about it, yours tinges too. 

\--

Dave hires a professional photographer, you think the same dude from the first time because those pictures were absolutely choice, to photograph you on your “two weeks until the wedding”-versary. Dave refuses to tell you where he’s taking you “so your response will be more genuine for the camera” and you remind him that you are the world’s most professional actor, it is you, you can muster some smarm for whatever it is he has planned. 

But you also like the fact that you are not mustering a damned thing, just reacting. He takes you out to dinner on a dock with a fancy candle in a bowl surrounded by a wreathe of flowers, two forks, and a live musician not too far away from you. You play up your reactions some, but you _are_ honestly impressed by the establishment, his offer to pay for your meal, and the flowers he gave you before arriving here. They’re carnations, mostly white with a few dark red ones thrown in. You google flower meanings on your phone and wonder if he did this on purpose, or just because he thought they were pretty.

No, no, Dave is stupidly nuanced with all his symbolism and minute details and shit. Not a jpeg fussed that he did not have fussed for a reason, not one word of dialogue not meant to be there. He absolutely knows the meanings of the flowers he’s given you. It’s stupid and _romantic_ but so are you so when Dave insists you get up and start dancing on the little patio there after dinner you play along because you’re too far gone in your role of moonstruck lover and you’ve actually managed to trick yourself into thinking that here, tonight, just for the evening, you are actually in love with Dave fucking perfect asshole Strider.

He takes you down the pier and you ride in the fucking ferris wheel. It’s kind of old and nothing special, but there are little yellow lights on the sides and the seats are painted in the six colors of the very, very basic crayola rainbow and the two of you sit together and he says dumb shit that makes you laugh and you mock random passerby beneath you for completely arbitrary and meaningless things like clothes and hair. He starts rambling, making up dumb stories of how that dude with the ugly haircut has recently been left by his wife and his dentist’s office that he’s a secretary for is considering on firing him because his body odor scares away anyone who doesn’t have tooth pain so badly that they are willing to suffer through his armpit stench in order to get their teeth drilled, or how that one lady has 2.5 children and has asked to see the manager at every dairy queen she has ever been to because they took longer than three minutes to created 18 unique blizzards for all the members of her son’s soccer team and that is unacceptable, or how that one guy once got eaten by an imp but it’s okay because he not only lived but got shit out the other end entirely unharmed. 

You start tossing in little details, fleshing out his whimsical stories, and when the attendant opens the door for you to climb out you feel it was too soon. The space on your side where Dave was pressed up, leaning in so his lips were at your ear so you could hear him over the wind and waves and sound of the city, is now cold in his absence.

The pictures are lovely, again, and you admire them. You talk over the events of the evening back in the ride to the apartment, and neither of you brings up how hilarious this is going to be when you pull your “gotcha,” you both simply admire the pictures and flowers and agree that the evening was a good one, which you’re grateful for. You’re a stellar actor, so you could probably force a laugh and crack a joke or two, but you don’t really feel in the mood for laughing over your mutual prank right then.

\--

The photos are ones you put up on facebook, and Dave puts on his facebook, and all of Dave’s many followers are suddenly all over it. Asking if that’s the dude who plays Geromy, holy shit he is, isn’t he, yo @dude check this out Strider is dating the dude who plays Geromy what the fuck is going on? Your PR guys are flabbergasted with you both, which is good for a laugh. Normally it’s just Dave’s ass they're riding, it gets some blood going in you to be able to get shouty and huffy and argumentative with them. It’s your fucking relationship, they can stay the fuck out of it! Dave loops an arm around your waist and leans his ridiculously tall figure on you and goes yeah, it’s our relationship, like he said.

You are an asshole that likes being an antagonistic piece of shit but you have to admit, you’re an asshole who likes arguing a whole lot more when you have Dave in your corner, backing you up. 

\--

“You realize I’m coming to your wedding whether you invite me or not, right?”

You stare at the genuinely-a-bad-person Strider outside your window and take a sip from your tea, the steam wafting off making you blink a little. You like your tea like you like your ass- unfathomably hot.

“Honey,” you call, not breaking eye contact with the perching man, “your asshole brother is outside the window!” You take another sip of your tea. It’s late in the evening and fucking _raining,_ what does this asshole even think he’s doing out here on a night like this? 

“I’ll get the broom,” Dave calls back from the other room. Dirk Sr. does not emote, but if he did you imagine he’d be baffled by the fact that you’re actually unlocking and opening the window. Dave arrives with the broom and starts thwaping him with it, which makes him actually make a displeased noise, and you say “shoo, shoo, get on, get, scat!” as Dave prods him with the fringe end.

You shut and lock the window after he flashsteps out of sight, and then the two of you burst out laughing.

“Holy shit, Dave,” you say through your snorts, “is he for real?”

“Unfortunately,” Dave says, sobering slightly. “God, what a dick. How the hell does he even know where I live?”

“Is that gonna be a problem?” you ask, because if he’s not supposed to know where Dave lives, but does, that sounds like that’s a problem.

“Eh,” Dave shrugs, “I lived with him most of my life, he’s definitely dangerous and a little bit evil but I can handle him.”

“He thinks he’s showing up at our wedding,” you tell him.

“Don’t worry about it darlin’,” Dave drawls with a yawn. “Roxanne is gonna be there. He’s not scared of many things but by hell he’s scared of her.”

You think back on the number of times you’ve met Dave’s family.

“Reasonable.”

“It’s the _only_ thing he’s reasonable about,” Dave mutters, and you pat him on the back and- without thinking- kiss his cheek. Oh god why did you do that what the fuck why would you do that???

“There there dear,” you say mockingly, trying to cover. It works. He snorts and rolls his eyes at you and then shakes his head at you, scrunching up his nose.

“Thanks, _sugar_.”

“Anything for you, muffin,” you say, and then the two of you make a game of who can come up with the most petnames for each other, which very rapidly delves into who can come up with the most absurd petname. Dave wins, but only by merit of you’re laughing too hard and he keeps spouting nonsense even though it’s not his turn anymore and you hit him with a pillow.

\--

The day of your wedding. It’s been _months_ of this prank but suddenly it feels here too soon. You tell Kanishka it feels like it’s here too soon, and he laughs at you, the prick. Your mouth feels cottony as you smooth your hands over your achkan. It’s red and gold, like everything at this wedding, and you try to swallow. Holy shit. For some reason, the revealing of your prank is no longer filling you with anticipation, and you wonder when it stopped doing that. Right now you just feel anxious. Like you’re actually getting married instead of pulling the greatest gotcha to ever go down in history. 

Dave looks phenomenal in his suit. His hair is combed and you’re both wearing makeup and you each have a rose pinned to your breast and you feel like the hottest couple in the world. There’s a small army packed into the seats, all of your family, all of your team, your team’s spouses and children, most of which have made a team of their own (which Kankri is a part of), Dave’s family, their teams, their kids, their kids’ teams, Alpha, Beta, and Alternia all present. A good majority of your coworkers, people with the press, friends, old neighbors, just about anyone and everyone your family or his was capable of thinking of inviting, they did. You’ve got a loooot of people to piss off.

The ceremony is a fluid mesh of cultures, one Kanishka has down pat as an Episcopalian priest coming from an extensive family of Indian immigrants, and then all too soon (but not soon enough, goddamn but your brother is long winded), he’s asking you if you take Dave Strider as your lawfully wedded husband. 

This is the part where you are supposed to say “I do not.” You’d planned to pull the rug out from everyone at the very, very last moment, and Dave would scream “psych” and the two of you would explain to your very angry family and his very asshole-smug family that you have been toying with them for months.

What comes out of your mouth instead is, “I do.”

Your eyes widen and you lock up, facing Kanishka who thank god is not looking at you. You very pointedly do not look at Dave. You can still salvage this. Say you wanted to tease him a little too, make him say the I do not, run it right on down to the wire, get him confused.

“And Dave Strider, do you take Katai Vantas to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

You just wanted to flip the tables on him! Make him say the I do not so that you can be the one to scream psych, get your family gasping at the scandal and-

“I do.”

Holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck holy fuck.

“I now pronounce you to be married, you may kiss!”

Your family cheers rancorously. So does your team. So does Dave’s team, and really everyone, except Dave’s immediate family, Eridan, and Kanaya, who are all shocked and wide eyed. You do not kiss Dave, because you are a little busy clutching your chest and wheezing. You have to lean on the pulpit.

“Oh my god Katai, seriously?” Kanishka asks, dropping his hands and staring at you with open exasperation. Dave is staring at you, stone faced but red as his suit, and is not making any move closer to or away from you.

“Holy fuck,” you squeak.

“Guess that’s one way to go about admitting mutual feelings for each other,” Dave says as the audience continues cheering for + laughing at you. 

“What?” Kanishka asks.

“Holy _fuck_ ,” you whine, because holy fuck. Holy fuck. You’re married to Dave. You’re married to Dave Fucking Strider and it isn’t a joke. Holy fuck you are actually, 100% legitimately, married to Dave Strider, your boss, your best friend.

“Do we… kiss now?” Dave asks you, and Kanishka looks between the two of you in frustration that you distantly hope the photographer is getting because you will be vindicated in some small way for all of this and it will definitely at least include your brother’s suffering.

“I guess!” you exclaim, and straighten so you can reach up (tall people. Assholes. That’s really all there is to say on the matter) and pull him down by the lapels of his suit so you can kiss him. You hear cameras going off and your family renews their cheers as your brain tries to process what the fuck just _happened_.

“So uh,” Dave says when you part, rubbing at the back of his head. “I love you.”

You take a deep breath in then burst out laughing, dropping your head against his chest and leaning on him. “Yeah, asshole,” you say back, “I love you too.”

Natalie is in a front row seat, and she is laughing at you still. She looks so, _insufferably_ , smug, and is leaning on Equiano with Theresa grinning at you from the other side of her.

“See, Katai?” she calls sweetly at you, altogether too pleased with herself, “I told you it would end really well!”

**Author's Note:**

> Do yourself a favor and google “bluish green opal” bc those shits are pretty as hell
> 
> I listened to this song almost the entire time I was writing this. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzuRvzsNpTU>
> 
> Carnations:  
> White= pure love and good luck  
> Dark red= deep love and affection
> 
> Anyway have some middle aged assholes who are in love


End file.
